It wasn't that I didn't know how to date girls, it was that I didn't know how to date anybody. Before this year, I had been on three real dates, and all of them were with boys I had previously spent time with in group settings. I didn't know how to go on a first date.

Now, perhaps more than ever before, black people are joining forces and standing up for their rights and recognition. Yet, there is still disharmony within that same united front when it comes to accepting our transgender brothers and sisters.

I believe it is important for heterosexual people and homosexual people to love and respect one another regardless of sexual orientation or transgender identity. However, it is also vital for LGBT communities to wield police power backed by the force of law.

Is this what we want, to make people nervous about engaging in dialogue? I hate to think about all the teachable moments that never happened because someone was afraid to ask me -- or any of us -- a question.

Barbershops are incubators for masculinity. As a visibly queer person, regardless of gender, entering a space like that can be intimidating and even scary. But under the right circumstances, going to the barber can also be a positive and affirming experience.

He does not speak for Kansas. He does not speak for God. Hate is not a Christian value. Hate is not a Kansas value. Hate is not an American value. The greatest possible gift I can give to this world is to be my true, authentic self. Sam Brownback has no power to change that.

Male and female sexual fluidity are expressed in ways that may not yet be showing up on paper. If a guy marks a box on a survey saying, yes, I've been attracted to another man, or, yes, I've had sex with another man in the past year, it may not be at all the same thing as when a woman checks the same box.

I've been learning how to be a lesbian lately, because my boyfriend and I opened our relationship last year. Ten productive months into being a sometimes-lesbian, I still have a lot of questions. So I reached out to Natashia Mower, this lesbian I know personally, to set me, well, gay, I guess.

It's always been one of my favorite things to do. Perform for a big audience. I know. Many people would choose death over public speaking. But I love it. The lights. The people. The butterflies in my stomach. The fellow cast members. All of it.

We were on the same side on this one. We lived through the '70s and '80s and '90s as committed to each other as any married couple. No lawyer was going to use outdated twisted laws to take away our 31 years.

We are told we don't want sex often enough. We want it too much. We are too made-up. We are not made-up enough. We should love our bodies. We should hate our disgusting bodies. And articles like "8 Things That Actually Gross Guys Out in Bed" are examples of the worst of this kind of shaming.

In summer 2014 Barilla launched a contest calling for content creators to submit work under 60 seconds that reflected their new diversity campaign. I felt strongly compelled to create a commercial testing their commitment to a more inclusive ad campaign. In fact, my submission was the only one that confronted them face-to-face with a gay family.

Being a woman at Dartmouth College in the 1970s was like having a double major. You were not only a freshman, you were also a "co-ed." You were not only a physics major or a government major, you were a "female" physics or government major--as if more estrogen in your system changed everything.